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Champions (Earth-616)
| Status = Active | Identity = Public | Universe = Earth-616 | BaseOfOperations = Champions Mobile Bunker | TeamLeaders = Ms. Marvel | CurrentMembers = Brawn, Falcon, Ironheart, Ms. Marvel, Patriot, Red Locust, Sam Alexander, Snowguard, Spider-Man, Viv, Wasp | FormerMembers = Cyclops | Allies = Alpha Flight, Alpha Flight Space Program, Maddy Cho, Red Room, Spider-Gwen, Underground | Enemies = Fangs of the Serpent, Fly, Freelancers, Hydra, Master of the World, Modred, Pagliacci, Scorpia, Warbringer | Origin = A group of young heroes who banded together after the second superhuman Civil War disillusioned by their elders such as the Avengers | CustomLabel = Slogan | Custom = "Go for Champions!" | PlaceOfFormation = George Washington Bridge, New York City, New York | PlaceOfDefunction = | Creators = Mark Waid; Humberto Ramos | First = Champions Vol 2 1 | Last = | Quotation = We see it all around us more and more every day -- people with power punching down. Taking lives when they don't have to. Meeting unarmed perps, even unarmed kids, with lethal firepower. That's the world we're inheriting, where violence does all the talking. But we can be better than that. We have to start enforcing justice without unjust force. What happened here today was sickening. And stuff as bad -- worse --''' happens '''every day in this world. The strong abuse the weak --''' who have to worry more '''all the time about who they can trust and who they can't. You want that to change? Us, too. We're in a war for a better tomorrow. Join us. Help us to not take the easy road, and I promise we'll fight every fight they can throw at us. Help us win the hard way -- the right way -- not with hate, not with retribution, but with wisdom and hope. Help us become champions. | Speaker = Ms. Marvel | QuoteSource = Champions Vol 2 1 | HistoryText = Origin The Champions originated following the departure of Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man and Nova from the Avengers, when the trio had become disillusioned by the behavior of their elders, specially in regards to the second superhuman Civil War. The young heroes desired to rectify the state of distrust by the people towards superheroes in general, and soon recruited other teenagers with similar ideals, the new Hulk, and Vivian ("Viv" for short), daughter of the Vision. Early Missions Their first joint mission consisted of saving a group of girls being trafficked by Pagliacci in nearby Maryland. Having succeeded and caught the attention of the bystanders, the young heroes revealed themselves to the public, with Ms. Marvel proclaiming their team's objective of fostering a better tomorrow through hope and wisdom rather than unjust force. Her speech from Baltimore became viral on the internet, and the team were soon dubbed the "Champions" in social media. One of the people encouraged by Ms. Marvel's words was the time-displaced Cyclops, who was admitted into the Champions' ranks after requesting to join them. Courtesy of Amadeus' new vehicle, they next traveled to Lasibad, Sharzhad where they secretly helped a group of young women, led by Amal, rout a faction of militant fundamentalists seeking to oppress them; however, they were shot out of the sky when they attempted to leave. After landing in the water, the Champions started to head towards a piece of land that Viv saw, with Hulk and Cyclops moving the ship. They got to the area where Viv saw, but instead of land they saw an Atlantean craft and were taken by their forces. They worked together to defeat the Atlanteans and left. But somewhere else, they inspired another hero: Gwenpool. Sometime after their Atlantean encounter, Sam Alexander met up with Amadeus Cho to verify that Richard Rider was who he said he was and that he had actually returned from the dead. Amadeus confirmed this, and the other Champions arrived to meet the recently resurrected hero. They informed Rich of what had been happening, with discussion ranging from the recent Civil War, the Vision's family, Past Cyclops coming to the future, and Ms. Marvel's, Spider-Man's, and Nova's tenures as Avengers. Rich told them he was previously in the New Warriors, but then he started seeing them as corpses, and because of this, he left Cho's Meat Wagon, with Sam right behind him and Ms. Marvel wondering if it was because she'd made fun of the New Warriors. Standing Against Hate Sometime later in Daly County, the Champions assisted the Police Department with saving some citizens from a burning mosque, over the very vocal disapproval of Sheriff Studdard, the county's recently elected law enforcement official. He initially accused Scott of starting the fire, but the Champions defended Cyclops and started to list off numerous complaints leveled against the Sheriff on social media. When Viv uncovered the remnants of a bomb that came from the police station, Studdard branded them criminals. Meanwhile, Nova saw a figure off in the distance taking something and moved to intercept, discovering Gwenpool, who told Sam to leave the area. Suddenly, there was an explosion, which destroyed a nearby police cruiser, and was taken as a cue for the team and Gwenpool to flee the scene. Gwen later tried to defend her actions, and Viv agreed she was right, though it wasn't poison in the air, rather it was hate. Later that night, the Champions stopped more hate crimes and decided their best action was to confront Deputy Sims regarding his failure to stand up to Sheriff Studdard. Sims promised the teens that Studdard would be prosecuted, but not until after things had cooled down due to his overwhelming popularity with their constituents. The team retreated to the roof, where they tried to concoct a plan, but none of them worked without them punching down against unpowered citizens, something they now refused to take part in. After Studdard dressed down Sims for having allowed the Champions to stay in Daly County, the Deputy changed his mind and addressed the voters concerning the reality that it was the Sheriff who had been facilitating the recent wave of xenophobic violence towards minorities. Annoyed that it wasn't secretly a plot by some well known villain after all, Gwenpool promptly left. Monsters Unleashed When the Champions learn of an incident involving Roxxon Oil and the Angeles National Forest, they gathered in California to investigate, but instead ran into a team of other super-powered people, the Freelancers, a group of mercenaries whose mission was to burn down the forest in order to frame the protesters and secure the site for construction of a pipeline. The two teams tried to reason with each other, but when one of the members, Cursed Cass, had in fact been instructed to set off a bomb, and a brawl between the two teams ensued. Cyclops notices that Hotness, who has pyrokinetic abilities, was missing, so Spider-Man and Nova went to find him. They discovered Hotness in the woods but were almost immediately confronted by a massive Leviathon. Ms. Marvel asked if the monster was with the Freelancers, but they responded that it wasn't, so she and Viv rushed the civilians to a nearby bus in hopes of spiriting them away from the battle as the others dealt with the new threat. Unfortunately a second member of the Leviathon Tide blocked the road, forcing Kamala face it alone. Meanwhile, the Freelancers and the rest of the Champions killed the first monster and arrived to aid Ms. Marvel, who nearly died facing the second Leviathon, though Viv restarted her heart to revive her. A third monster was then detected heading for Los Angeles, and the Champions left to handle with it. Inhumans vs. X-Men After Mosaic temporarily possessed Cyclops, he and Forge convinced a group of NuHumans, including his teammate Ms. Marvel, to switch sides and aid the Mutants in their quest to remove the Terrigen Mist from the Earth's atmosphere. Misunderstanding this new alliance, and seeing Scott with the enemy, Emma Frost promptly attacked him, forcing Kamala to spring to his defense. Freelancers When the team realized that they have gone global with people using their logo for good things like beach-cleaning and recycling, self-defense classes, and helping build houses, they went to celebrate by playing paintball against each other, with Ms. Marvel, Viv, and Cyclops on one team and Nova, Spider-Man, and Hulk on another with their powers intact. Nova and his team won thanks to a technicality, but they and the rest of the Champions were quickly shot with paintballs by Viv's father: the Vision. Meanwhile, the Gemini Bank Corporation had hired the Freelancers, who tricked a couple of homeless men to say that it was the Champions who attacked them in Brentwood. The Champions encountered them again as they were forcibly evicting people from their homes in Minneapolis, and a confrontation ensued, which only lasted until Panic used her fear-inducing powers against Ms. Marvel to confront her with her worst fear; this only earned Panic a well-deserved beatdown, as the thing Ms. Marvel feared the most was losing everything the Champions had worked to build. Seeing themselves now on the losing side, the Freelancers called off the fight and agreed to come clean about their attack on the homeless people, but soon after Might revealed that the Champions logo had been trademarked as a brand name, as another move by the Freelancers' employers to discredit the team. Disheartened with the team now being viewed at large as sellouts, Ms. Marvel thought of quitting, and the team members were left adrift, but Nova recorded a video of himself burning Champions-branded merchandise and urging the people who truly believed in the Champions to do the same, recovering their spirit. Secret Empire When Hydra assumed control of the United States of America, the Champions responded to Iron Man's distress call to protect Washington, D.C. alongside numerous other heroes, all of whom were soundly defeated when Captain America wielded Mjolnir. Under advice from Spider-Man, the Champions retreated, ultimately regrouping at Olympus Group Secret HQ ATX001 after becoming separated from Ms. Marvel. They then raided an Inhumans interment camp known as Camp Echo-1 in New Mexico in an attempt to find their missing teammate, but to no avail. Amadeus, Viv, and Miles eventually joined the Underground where they associated with Ironheart, Wasp, Falcon, and Patriot, as Kamala had gone into hiding, Scott was with the X-Men (Blue Team) in New Tian, and Sam was trapped beyond the Planetary Defense Shield in Earth Orbit. After Hydra leveled Las Vegas, Black Widow set out to assassinate Captain America. Spider-Man joined her, having decided to stop running away from his supposed destiny to kill Captain America, as prophesied by the Inhuman precog Ulysses Cain. The remaining Champions, alongside Joaquín, Nadia and Riri, followed him to offer their support, thus joining Black Widow's Red Room. The teenagers were eventually captured by Hydra after Widow's assassination attempt failed and resulted in her death. Spider-Man almost killed Captain America, but Wasp convinced him not to, since they had learned Black Widow tried to kill Rogers herself prevent Miles from becoming a killer. The teenagers were subsequently arrested. When a contingent of superheroes launched a desperate attack on Hydra, Hydra allies Taskmaster and Black Ant decided to switch sides in light of Hydra's eventual defeat, and freed the Red Room from their cell to be in the heroes' good graces. The Champions were reunited during the final battle, which saw the return of the real Captain America and fall of Hydra. Worlds Collide A short time following Hydra's fall, the Champions saw themselves forced into an uneasy alliance with the Avengers when the High Evolutionary attempted to cause the collision between the Earth and his Counter-Earth. During the adventure, Viv was captured by the High Evolutionary's forces, and transformed into a real human with no powers. Viv seemingly sacrificed herself to operate the device that controlled the Counter-Earth's rotational-frequency, causing the planet to harmlessly phase through the Earth instead. While Viv was actually trapped on another plane of existence, she was believed dead. In an attempt to cope with her death, Vision built a second Viv. However, Viv eventually found her way home, leading to the co-existence between Viv and her synthetic counterpart. Taking into account Viv's feelings, the Champions refrained from welcoming Viv's twin into the team. They instead decided to recruit more manpower to compensate for their diminished ranks. They invited Ironheart, Patriot, Falcon, and burgeoning new hero Red Locust, whom Viv had encountered months earlier. Viv rejoined the Champions' rank after her twin sister went haywire and she was forced to kill her in self-defense. The Vision and Wasp managed to repair the body, and since they couldn't bring back her mind, Viv transferred his consciousness to the synthetic body as a way to both regain her powers and ensure her sister lived on through herself. | Equipment = Each member's personal equipment. | Transportation = C.M.B.; formerly Cho's Meat Wagon, a jet, and a truck. | Weapons = Each member's personal weapons. | Notes = | Trivia = | Links = }}